Salvador Isabelino del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús
Allende Gossens was born into an upper-class familyin
Valparaiso, Chile, on July 26, 1908. His grandfather was
one of the founders of the Chilean Radical Party in the
1860's, and his father and uncles were active members of
the party.

After graduating from secondary school at the age of
16, Allende enrolled in the Coraceros Cavalry Regiment
and, after a tour of duty, entered the University of
Chile Medical School. Attracted to Marxism while at the
university, he became an activist and was arrested twice
and expelled twice before graduating in 1932. His student
radicalism prevented him from getting hired by a major
hospital, so he was forced to take work as a pathology
assistant, performing autopsies on the cadavers of the
poor. He eventually established a practice among public
welfare patients in Valparaiso.

In 1933, Allende was one of the founders of the
Chilean Socialist Party, which was based on Marxist
principles. In 1937, he was elected to the Chamber of
Deputies, where he introduced legislation on public
health, social welfare, and the rights of women. In 1939,
he was named Minister of Health, Prevention, and Social
Assistance, a position he held until 1942. During his
tenure as Minister of Health, he helped implement such
social reforms as higher pensions, a free school lunch
program, and safety laws for factory workers.

In 1940, Allende married Hortensia Bussi, with whom he
had three daughters, Carmen Paz, Isabel and Beatriz.

In 1939, Allende published La Realidad
Médico-Social Chilena (The Chilean Socio-Medical
Reality), which focused on on specific health
problems generated by the poor living conditions of the
working class. He concluded the book with proposals for
health improvement that emphasized social change rather
than medical intervention.

Allende became the leader of the Chilean Socialist
Party in 1942. In 1945, he was elected to the Senate,
where he remained until 1970. During his tenure in the
Senate, he introduced the legislation that created the
Chilean National Health Service, the first program in the
Americas to guarantee universal health care.

Allende was an unsuccessful candidate for President in
1952, 1958, and 1964. On September 4, 1970, he won 36.3
per cent of the vote in a three-way race (with former
President Jorge Alessandri Rodriguez and Christian
Democratic candidate Radomiro Tomic Romero). Since
neither candidate polled a clear majority, the choice of
President fell to Congress, which, thanks to a deal made
with the Christian Democrats, ultimately elected Allende.
He was inaugurated on November 3.

Allende holds a news conference after being
elected President.

When Allende took office, unemployment was high and an
estimated half of the country's children under the age of
15 were suffering from malnutrition. Allende immediately
implemented a socialist agenda, increasing wages and
freezing prices while taking steps to reform the
education system, health care, and government
administration. One of his first major actions was to
decentralize health care by empowering local health
councils to serve the people directly. The focus on
public rather than private care threatened the income of
the nation's private physicians, who became part of a
major opposition bloc. He also nationalized many
large-scale industries and expropriated American-owned
copper industries without compensation.

Allende's Marxist leanings made him unpopular with
other American nations, especially the United States,
which gave millions of dollars to his opponents. His
presidency was further undermined by political opposition
from within Chile, as well as by continuing economic
instabilty. His inability to control his own radical left
wing brought further hostility from the middle class,
though he remained popular among workers and peasants. On
September 11, 1973, General Augusto
Pinochet led a military coup d'état to overthrow
Allende, who refused to surrender and barricaded himself
in the presidential palace. During the siege, a large
number of civilians were killed or wounded and many were
imprisoned. Allende was found dead that same day, with
suicide given as the official cause of death.